Top-left: Trans-national corporations use the world as a bargaining table. Top-right: "McDonaldization," one form of cultural dominance in globalization. Center: Trans-national corporations and their grip over nations. Bottom-right: The world caught between neoliberalism and anti-globalization ideologies. Bottom-left: A chart showing the massive differences between population size and GNP for several different countries.
How our current version of globalization unites us in all the wrong ways.
Globalization is hailed as the unifying force in today's world, bringing people and cultures together like never before. However, the main function of modern globalization has been made into an economic one, with trans-national corporations having net worth that rivals large nations and dwarfs smaller nations. These global economic powerhouses operate in many cases in the blind spots of the law, or often have too much power or are too influential for small nation-states to stop. The corporations like to let people think that globalization will benefit everyone involved, at a personal, national and obviously international level. Globalization is, in fact empowering the people. Except these "people" are only considered individuals under the law, and are really huge corporations spanning multiple continents and every industry imaginable. This is the world globalization makes for us, a world where trans-national corporations supersede nations.
Globalization Defined:
So what is globalization? That question is more difficult to answer than it appears to be. At its most basic, general level, globalization is “a process (or set of processes) which embodies a transformation in the spatial organization of social relations and transactions – assessed in terms of their extensity, intensity, velocity and impact – generating transcontinental or interregional flows and networks of activity, interaction, and the exercise of power (Held, Mcgrew, Goldblatt & Perraton 1999).” The globalization in our world today is but one type of globalization, economic globalization. Economic globalization is focused on the flow of capital through the world market, and is less about the extent and success of everyday trading or even about the flow of a workforce (Prempeh 2004). In fact, economic globalization’s overall effect on populations is to prevent the flow of a skilled workforce, preferring fractured populations of unskilled labor (Chomsky 2006).
The Problem:
As stated previously, “globalization” as it functions today is just a subset of globalization, the economic subset. The concept of basic general globalization is, overall, a good one. The ability to travel to different countries, to meet new people of different cultures, to call friends in other parts of the world: these are some of the positive social aspects of overall globalization. However, the objective of the globalization that prevails today is solely the flow of capital, and the power that follows. This flow is far from balanced (Barbieri 2005).
Though it is widely accepted that the rising gap in recent years on a global scale between the rich and the poor is linked to globalization, the extent of this link is difficult to discern. However, that doesn’t make the effect any less severe. According to research by Gören Therborn in 2001, while the income gap between the fifth of the global population living in the richest countries and the fifth of the population living in the poorest countries was 30:1 in 1960, that had changed to 74:1 by 1997. By the late 1990s, the wealthiest 20% of the world’s population possessed 86% of global GDP, while the poorest 20% held a paltry 1%. This graphic shows the imbalance between various countries' populations and their Gross National Products.
Multinational corporations thrive on globalization, which allows them to do business across many different governments and nation-states, so they are beholden to no one country. Exacerbating the problem is the multinational control of the discourse on globalization, spreading the “lexicon of liberty, liberalism, and deregulation (Amin 2004)" and that national governments have actually consented to give up their control over economic forces, as well as actively encouraging globalization (Amin 2004). Some states have done this in the hopes of economic returns, but are also influenced by the multinational elite (Amin 2004).
Another problem with globalization can be the way in which it can synchronize problems with many countries. The housing economic bubble up until 2007 is a clear example of this. In an editorial in the Journal of Coastal research, the impact this economic boom and subsequent bust had on the coasts of various countries was explored. In Great Britain, the author states that several coastal towns witnessed the sale price of real estate rise by 90 – 100% over a two-year period. In Wales, the price of 12 X 10 ft. beach huts, which do not have plumbing or electricity, and cannot be used for accommodation, rose in price from $29,000 in 2002 to $100,000 in 2004 (Cooper 2009). The European market had already extended to North Africa and Turkey, but credit was so easy and potential profits so large that it began to spread farther outward.
Coastal property was advertised in newspapers for the Cape Verde Islands, Brazil, Costa Rica, Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand (Cooper, 2009). Any country perceived to have a stable government with low risk to investment was fair game to property developers and governments out to profit from the boom. The humongous engineering works in Dubai are intended to create as much space for construction on the coast as possible. On the Gold Coast in Australia, large-scale apartment block development on a sand barrier that has limited space forced the construction of high-rise apartment buildings. In Ireland, land in numerous small villages was bought up and housing developments were constructed. In rural coastal villages, any property on the market was quickly purchased by outsiders as second homes, which then had occupancy rates of 1 week in 52 (Cooper 2009). Services could not keep up with residential development because the land needed for them was more valuable for housing. The coastal town of Portballintrae in Northern Ireland now has no shops and until recently no hotel because they had been converted into apartments (Cooper 2009).
Environmentally, this development fundamentally transforms the coasts, and even the development process itself can be destructive. In Phuket, Thailand, a reported two-thirds of the coral reefs have been destroyed by debris and sludge created by construction work. In Dubai, dredging of sand for construction of artificial islands and peninsulas destroyed seabed habitats and increased the turbidity of the water near the shore (Cooper 2009).
Stakeholders:
Considering globalization is centered on integration and interaction, it makes sense that the list of stakeholders is huge. Some of these stakeholders include, but are not limited to: Multinational corporations - They stand to gain from economic globalization (Amin 2004).
National corporations - They face competition from newly-encountered global rivals (Abrahams 2010).
Governments - In larger countries, they usually work with transnational companies, and in weaker countries, they do not have the resources to combat multinational power (Näsström 2004).
Small Business owners – They face usually overwhelming competition from multinational corporations, as their resources pale in comparison to those of a multinational (Cooper 2009).
Skilled laborers – They are undervalued in the overall global market, and sometimes must do unskilled labor one they lose employment (Amin 2004).
Unskilled laborers – They have little choice in developing countries other than to work in factories set up by multinationals (Amin 2004).
Residents of rural areas – They are often pushed out of their own areas by outsiders desiring second homes and vacation spots. Many move to urban areas, where they become the excess labor force that multinational corporations exploit (Cooper 2009), (Chomsky 2006).
Residents of urban areas (poor) – They are usually unskilled labor, and many originally came from rural areas and were pushed out by development. These people are exploited by multinational corporations for cheap labor (Chomsky 2006), (Barbieri 2005).
Residents of urban areas (rich) – Many are the people who benefit from economic globalization, as they may be stock traders or are otherwise tied into the profitable end of the flow of capital (Cooper 2009).
Possible Solutions:
The problems with globalization are pervasive, and as such are increasingly difficult to work on. The only real way to combat these problems is through the unification of opposition. Global re-regulation could help if governments worked together to pass regulatory laws on trade and made revisions to the workings of present international institutions, like the IMF and the World Bank (Amin 2004).
The public opposition to the increasing income inequality catalyzed by economic globalization is being funneled through different channels, one of these being the World Social Forum, where the problems of current globalization are discussed, as are possible solutions. While this is not exactly an action to counteract globalization as it stands now, it is an important step in creating the solutions to be used in the future.
Works Cited:
Abrahams, Caryn. "Transforming the Region: Supermarkets and the Local Food Economy." African Affairs 109 (2010): 115-134.
Amin, Ash. "Regulating Economic Globalization." Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers New Series, vol. 29 (2004): 217-233.
Barbieri, Katherine and Rafael Reuveny. "Economic Globalization and Civil War." The Journal of Politics 67 (2005): 1228-1247.
Cooper, J.A.G. and J. McKenna. "Boom and Bust: The Influence of Macroscale Economics on the World's Coasts." Editorial. Journal of Coastal Research 25 (2009): 533-538.
Held, D., A. McGrew, D. Goldblatt, and J. Perraton. "Global transformations:Politics, economics and culture." (1999) Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Näsström, Sofia. "What Globalization Overshadows" Political Theory 31 (2003): 808-834.
Prempeh, E. Osei Kwadwo. "Anti-Globalization Forces, the Politics of Resistance, and Africa: Promises and Perils." Journal of Black Studies 34 (2004): 580-598.
The Institute for Policy Studies, a group studying the effects of Globalization, as well as other sources of wealth and power inequality : http://www.ips-dc.org/
The Matrix 2
Economic Globalization : Power to the "People"
Top-left: Trans-national corporations use the world as a bargaining table. Top-right: "McDonaldization," one form of cultural dominance in globalization. Center: Trans-national corporations and their grip over nations. Bottom-right: The world caught between neoliberalism and anti-globalization ideologies. Bottom-left: A chart showing the massive differences between population size and GNP for several different countries.How our current version of globalization unites us in all the wrong ways.
Globalization is hailed as the unifying force in today's world, bringing people and cultures together like never before. However, the main function of modern globalization has been made into an economic one, with trans-national corporations having net worth that rivals large nations and dwarfs smaller nations. These global economic powerhouses operate in many cases in the blind spots of the law, or often have too much power or are too influential for small nation-states to stop. The corporations like to let people think that globalization will benefit everyone involved, at a personal, national and obviously international level. Globalization is, in fact empowering the people. Except these "people" are only considered individuals under the law, and are really huge corporations spanning multiple continents and every industry imaginable. This is the world globalization makes for us, a world where trans-national corporations supersede nations.
Globalization Defined:
So what is globalization? That question is more difficult to answer than it appears to be. At its most basic, general level, globalization is “a process (or set of processes) which embodies a transformation in the spatial organization of social relations and transactions – assessed in terms of their extensity, intensity, velocity and impact – generating transcontinental or interregional flows and networks of activity, interaction, and the exercise of power (Held, Mcgrew, Goldblatt & Perraton 1999).” The globalization in our world today is but one type of globalization, economic globalization. Economic globalization is focused on the flow of capital through the world market, and is less about the extent and success of everyday trading or even about the flow of a workforce (Prempeh 2004). In fact, economic globalization’s overall effect on populations is to prevent the flow of a skilled workforce, preferring fractured populations of unskilled labor (Chomsky 2006).
The Problem:
As stated previously, “globalization” as it functions today is just a subset of globalization, the economic subset. The concept of basic general globalization is, overall, a good one. The ability to travel to different countries, to meet new people of different cultures, to call friends in other parts of the world: these are some of the positive social aspects of overall globalization. However, the objective of the globalization that prevails today is solely the flow of capital, and the power that follows. This flow is far from balanced (Barbieri 2005).
Though it is widely accepted that the rising gap in recent years on a global scale between the rich and the poor is linked to globalization, the extent of this link is difficult to discern. However, that doesn’t make the effect any less severe. According to research by Gören Therborn in 2001, while the income gap between the fifth of the global population living in the richest countries and the fifth of the population living in the poorest countries was 30:1 in 1960, that had changed to 74:1 by 1997. By the late 1990s, the wealthiest 20% of the world’s population possessed 86% of global GDP, while the poorest 20% held a paltry 1%. This graphic shows the imbalance between various countries' populations and their Gross National Products.
Multinational corporations thrive on globalization, which allows them to do business across many different governments and nation-states, so they are beholden to no one country. Exacerbating the problem is the multinational control of the discourse on globalization, spreading the “lexicon of liberty, liberalism, and deregulation (Amin 2004)" and that national governments have actually consented to give up their control over economic forces, as well as actively encouraging globalization (Amin 2004). Some states have done this in the hopes of economic returns, but are also influenced by the multinational elite (Amin 2004).
Another problem with globalization can be the way in which it can synchronize problems with many countries. The housing economic bubble up until 2007 is a clear example of this. In an editorial in the Journal of Coastal research, the impact this economic boom and subsequent bust had on the coasts of various countries was explored. In Great Britain, the author states that several coastal towns witnessed the sale price of real estate rise by 90 – 100% over a two-year period. In Wales, the price of 12 X 10 ft. beach huts, which do not have plumbing or electricity, and cannot be used for accommodation, rose in price from $29,000 in 2002 to $100,000 in 2004 (Cooper 2009). The European market had already extended to North Africa and Turkey, but credit was so easy and potential profits so large that it began to spread farther outward.
Coastal property was advertised in newspapers for the Cape Verde Islands, Brazil, Costa Rica, Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand (Cooper, 2009). Any country perceived to have a stable government with low risk to investment was fair game to property developers and governments out to profit from the boom. The humongous engineering works in Dubai are intended to create as much space for construction on the coast as possible. On the Gold Coast in Australia, large-scale apartment block development on a sand barrier that has limited space forced the construction of high-rise apartment buildings. In Ireland, land in numerous small villages was bought up and housing developments were constructed. In rural coastal villages, any property on the market was quickly purchased by outsiders as second homes, which then had occupancy rates of 1 week in 52 (Cooper 2009). Services could not keep up with residential development because the land needed for them was more valuable for housing. The coastal town of Portballintrae in Northern Ireland now has no shops and until recently no hotel because they had been converted into apartments (Cooper 2009).
Environmentally, this development fundamentally transforms the coasts, and even the development process itself can be destructive. In Phuket, Thailand, a reported two-thirds of the coral reefs have been destroyed by debris and sludge created by construction work. In Dubai, dredging of sand for construction of artificial islands and peninsulas destroyed seabed habitats and increased the turbidity of the water near the shore (Cooper 2009).
Stakeholders:
Considering globalization is centered on integration and interaction, it makes sense that the list of stakeholders is huge. Some of these stakeholders include, but are not limited to:
Multinational corporations - They stand to gain from economic globalization (Amin 2004).
National corporations - They face competition from newly-encountered global rivals (Abrahams 2010).
Governments - In larger countries, they usually work with transnational companies, and in weaker countries, they do not have the resources to combat multinational power (Näsström 2004).
Small Business owners – They face usually overwhelming competition from multinational corporations, as their resources pale in comparison to those of a multinational (Cooper 2009).
Skilled laborers – They are undervalued in the overall global market, and sometimes must do unskilled labor one they lose employment (Amin 2004).
Unskilled laborers – They have little choice in developing countries other than to work in factories set up by multinationals (Amin 2004).
Residents of rural areas – They are often pushed out of their own areas by outsiders desiring second homes and vacation spots. Many move to urban areas, where they become the excess labor force that multinational corporations exploit (Cooper 2009), (Chomsky 2006).
Residents of urban areas (poor) – They are usually unskilled labor, and many originally came from rural areas and were pushed out by development. These people are exploited by multinational corporations for cheap labor (Chomsky 2006), (Barbieri 2005).
Residents of urban areas (rich) – Many are the people who benefit from economic globalization, as they may be stock traders or are otherwise tied into the profitable end of the flow of capital (Cooper 2009).
Possible Solutions:
The problems with globalization are pervasive, and as such are increasingly difficult to work on. The only real way to combat these problems is through the unification of opposition. Global re-regulation could help if governments worked together to pass regulatory laws on trade and made revisions to the workings of present international institutions, like the IMF and the World Bank (Amin 2004).
The public opposition to the increasing income inequality catalyzed by economic globalization is being funneled through different channels, one of these being the World Social Forum, where the problems of current globalization are discussed, as are possible solutions. While this is not exactly an action to counteract globalization as it stands now, it is an important step in creating the solutions to be used in the future.
Works Cited:
Abrahams, Caryn. "Transforming the Region: Supermarkets and the Local Food Economy." African Affairs 109 (2010): 115-134.
Amin, Ash. "Regulating Economic Globalization." Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers New Series, vol. 29 (2004): 217-233.
Barbieri, Katherine and Rafael Reuveny. "Economic Globalization and Civil War." The Journal of Politics 67 (2005): 1228-1247.
Chomsky, Noam. Lecture on Globalization. 2006. Viewed on Oct. 31, 2010. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdYwAXZh0ME>
Cooper, J.A.G. and J. McKenna. "Boom and Bust: The Influence of Macroscale Economics on the World's Coasts." Editorial. Journal of Coastal Research 25 (2009): 533-538.
Held, D., A. McGrew, D. Goldblatt, and J. Perraton. "Global transformations:Politics, economics and culture." (1999) Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Näsström, Sofia. "What Globalization Overshadows" Political Theory 31 (2003): 808-834.
Prempeh, E. Osei Kwadwo. "Anti-Globalization Forces, the Politics of Resistance, and Africa: Promises and Perils."
Journal of Black Studies 34 (2004): 580-598.
Collage Images:
World as a bargaining table: http://trendsupdates.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/trade-globalization1.jpg
McDonald's in China: http://www.nbainchina.com/wp-content/uploads/mcdonalschina.jpg
World Map w/Corporations: http://fc01.deviantart.com/fs24/f/2008/013/c/f/Globalization_by_Guille3691.png
World Contemplating Globalization: http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/globalization.jpg
Population vs. GDP Graphic: http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,721483,00.jpg
Interesting Links:
TED talk about the promise and the danger of globalization: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ian_goldin_navigating_our_global_future.html
The Institute for Policy Studies, a group studying the effects of Globalization, as well as other sources of wealth and power inequality : http://www.ips-dc.org/
World Social Forum, an annual meeting based on finding viable alternatives to neoliberalism and supporting the positive social aspects of globalization: http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/index.php?cd_language=2&id_menu=
Part of a lecture by Noam Chomsky on Globalization: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHJPSLgHemM